


Coals

by billspilledquill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Discussions On The French Revolution, Druken Kisses, Gen, M/M, Microfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 11:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14873079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: Grantaire laughs, choked and wet. “You are a cruel, cruel thing. You think you can come here and order me back home, like you would a hound?”





	Coals

 

Enjolras doesn’t understand confines, and yet he does, he does things that are within the confines of his own rules. Talking to Grantaire once in awhile would be the preoccupation of the day. The hour.

The man looks just as ruffled and battled as his hair. Do you even shower, lad? Someone asked him with distain. With my liquor, everything is clean, the man yells, and the tavern is silent, and continues on. It always goes on.

Grantaire swings his bottle of wine, “It’s brandy.”

Enjolras shifts forward, strides, “Give it to me.”

They told him that he was here, and asked him—of all people—to fetch him home. Enjolras didn’t asked where is that home, for fear of being misunderstood.

Enjolras doesn’t understand the confines of societal expectations, because no one is expecting him of anything. And yet, he thinks when he reaches for Grantaire, and yet.

“So much of you is gone,” he says and Grantaire starts, eyes wide. “Where it is?”

Grantaire tilts his head, tries to pour more liquor in his large, eager mouth. His lips curls back childishly. “It used to have much more in there, Apollo.”

“There’s no deity here.”

Grantaire shrugs. “So is Robespierre. Yet he got guillotined.” He orders another brandy before Enjolras could stop him. “Death by his lame would be paradise itself, because only gods get to die without pain, don’t you think?”

Enjolras sits down, and folds his hands. It had been a tired week. So he listens.

Grantaire’s black, dark eyes stare in his. “You have too much Saint-Just in you,” he says. “Except the eyes,” his face comes closer, yet everything is still so clear in his eyes, and so, so much like coals, “the eyes here, they are cerulean, there is glimmers of gold,” he touches his hair as if he was afraid to break it, “you make yourself tall and righteous at the tribune, you speak for the King’s death, you will even scream the King is dead for Louis XV,” he says. The servant brought him a bottle. He grabs it and pour, pour, pour. “Too much of you is godly, and I think I aspire to be your godless soul.”

Grantaire laughs, choked and wet. “You are a cruel, cruel thing. You think you can come here and order me back home, like you would a hound?”

“I’m just here because your friends are waiting. You are not one to disappoint your friends.”

“Certainties. You speak as if you are confidant enough to lead a revolution,” Grantaire gloups a mouthful of wine. A trail of it strained his mouth and waistcoat. Enjolras reaches, he reaches a lot these days.

“The Spartans would be proud of your courtship, monsieur,” Grantaire stops him, holding his wrist with a surprisingly strong hold. Everything about him looks weak, Enjolras thinks. Especially there, his long fingers touch his, and he feels the bones tremble beneath them. “But I believe that you needn’t bother with me, of all people.”

“You don’t have convictions.” He says.

“What’s the problem with that?”

“You don’t have a new hat, nor a new coat.”

Grantaire hasn’t released him yet. The grip becomes softer. He arches an eyebrow. “And?”

“You could very well have,” he says. “Convictions are in fashion in the Parisian streets, it’s way more easier to get than a new cloth.”

Grantaire’s feet tap on the wooden floor. It feels like the drums of the guillotine. Enjolras speaks out, because it somehow feels like his last, “Than a mistress, if this helps you to understand.”

And so Grantaire pulls Enjolras’ hands, and puts his cold lips on his knuckles. His tongue swirls. Enjolras feels that if he pulls away, the lame would kill him, right here, right now. He has never been as scared of death at that exact moment where Grantaire makes his promise.

“Write me that Declaration of Rights you have been thinking about, Antoine.” Grantaire promises. His promise is like himself, bold and despicable.

“We are not in ninety-three, there is no god,” he says and pulls the wine away. “There’s only the people and its will. There’s only the rights and the King.”

Grantaire grabs him by the shoulder, kisses him tenderly. The bottle of wine spills like fresh, damned blood. Neither of them could speak for a moment, so Enjolras wonders, just for a little while, if diamonds can turn into coals just as well.

Grantaire grins and Enjolras knows he is out of himself. Too much of him is already gone. “Buy me a new hat?” He asks.

And Grantaire eyes shine with a conviction he had never seen before, the ones he would usually feel before his lecture on Rousseau, or on a contemplation of a portrait of Robespierre. 

“If you insist,” he says. 

 

 


End file.
